Personal care products are well known and widely used. These products have long been employed to protect, cleanse and moisturize, deliver actives, hide imperfections and reduce the oiliness and shine on keratinous surfaces. A variety of personal-care compositions are available to provide skin care benefits and to help prevent and even counteract what many consumers consider to be undesirable signs of skin aging such as fine lines, wrinkles, and uneven skin texture. The look and feel of the compositions are also important to consumers.
In order to achieve compositions with new and desirable look and feel aesthetics, one approach has been altering the physical properties of natural oils or fats to achieve butters that are spreadable on skin. Butters possess attributes that are different from traditional solids and liquids in that they are solid when applied but may liquefy under pressure. Body butter products typically consist of oil-in-water emulsions that contain butters and other waxy materials. The waxy materials give these products a more solid-like consistency than most traditional skin care moisturizer products. Importantly, the formulations appear to melt into the skin as they are applied. Thus consumers like these butter products since they look rich and creamy. However, after they are applied to the skin these butter products, having waxy materials, may look shiny or may feel sticky, greasy, or heavy.
In addition, most butter product formulations in the literature and market utilize conventional aqueous thickeners, such as carbomers and similar polymers. Thus, for example, in the case of carbomers, the so-called “quick-breaking effect” may be observed. The “quick-breaking effect” is understood as the phenomenon where, in the case of contact of the emulsion with the electrolytes of the skin, the emulsion immediately breaks. This phenomenon is evident from an “aqueous sliding away” upon rubbing in and is often perceived as unpleasant by consumers.
Thus, surprisingly it has been found that the inclusion of high levels of powder particulates, such as spherical starch powders, and higher levels of waxy materials with optimal wax/oil ratios, yields significant improvement in the in-use aesthetics of these compositions. These compositions thus maintain a rich, luxurious, thick and creamy appearance prior to use, as well as deliver a superior in use experience. These improved compositions feel less sticky, greasy, or heavy after they are applied to the skin. If the level of powder is too high, the product may be harder to spread on skin and such products can also become noticeably white and can flake off the skin.
In addition to further enhance the improved skin feel upon application to skin, the present compositions comprise alternative superabsorbent polymers thickeners. These superabsorbent polymer thickeners further enhance the skin feel during application. Specifically these products provide better spreading during application, less stickiness, and a less oily or greasy look and feel.
Accordingly, there is a need to provide skin care moisturizing formulations that comprise higher levels of oil components, wax materials, and powder particulates, along with superabsorbent polymer thickeners, at optimized ratios. This system not only looks rich, luxurious, thick and creamy, additionally it delivers rub-in characteristics of conventional butter products, but with a lighter, less-sticky, less-greasy, and a superior smooth feel which is both new and unexpected.